Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Social architecture refers to the enterprise culture that
influences the desired human behaviors within the operating environment of an
enterprise. Social architecture is all about “enterprise behavior”, which plays
an important role in the ongoing smooth operations, improvement, growth and
transformation of an enterprise. The failure or success of a change
initiative

In concept and in practice, "social architecture" represents an interesting challenge
because social architecture, in any meaningful sense, is a very limited and
dependent subset of Organizational
Culture. Specifically, the social architecture of any organization is
dependent on the culture of that organization.

So why should and how to develop a social / knowledge
architecture for and within EA?

Architecturally, the set of processes and products / services (in a particular
segment / industry) need to be identified and structured (hopefully no gaps), so
these can be managed (designed, developed, tested, used and improved). It
builds both knowledge and experience which can then be shared. So, teams
deliver capabilities and processes, provide specific information about the work
behind the capabilities.

Enterprise social
platform enables social architecture, need be purpose driven, compared to
personal social connection based on interest or hobby, every business has clear
purpose & mission, thus, the true social organizations need unite talent
via such purpose, otherwise, being social too casually may just turn to be a
distraction or decrease productivity.

1. Social Architecture Enforces EA Communication

The successful development of enterprise architectures and
implementation of
the business improvements or business transformation are highly reliant on
the
successful engagement of stakeholders in the development and
implementation
of the implicit change agenda, social enforces within and cross-team
communication.

a) EA team interactions
b) Enterprise
interactions with EA team and with each other
c) Enterprise interactions with external parties - suppliers, customers,
regulators, competitors

d) Engaging with stakeholders
e) Communicating the EA journey
f) Communicating the emerging picture / model of the enterprise, as is and as
intended
g) Reconciling the differences in people's mental models of the enterprise and
its current reflection in the shared models being developed

Social keeps you update:
*how do we know what is going
on?
* How do we understand what is going on?
* How do we act upon what is going on?
* How do we remember things?
* How do we communicate things?
* How do we learn from experience?

2. A social/knowledge architecture facilitates the collaboration

The three areas "operate (deliver); improve
(innovation); and manage" cover all of the key activities used within the
organization. The management of the activities and processes (descriptions) is
about managing, communicating and improving the way the organization works. (process
ownership, management and improvement).

So an interesting question related to capabilities (and
social and knowledge) is how capabilities are identified, created, improved
(adapted), and released ... what are the capabilities to do this, who does
this... and where are they in the organization and how well do these work. These
capabilities are fundamental and represent critical activities (work) that must
be done well and be visible in an architecture.

Social architecture matters a lot,
not only for EA team, but for business as a whole --How to become more
open, agile, and resilient, how to enforce cross-functional collaboration,
iterative communication and embrace customer, partners into conversation
& co-creation, the goal is about sharing, collaborating, orchestrating
and integration. EA teams may also be at the right position to prototype,
model the change in organizational structure design, culture shaping,
governance enforcement and well-bridging strategy & execution.

The capability to see the whole is the
foundation of enterprise architecture Wisdom comes from seeing the
whole where the whole is greater than the sum of parts.. However, in an organization, most people
can only touch the tree without seeing the forest. And it is also a human
nature to think the parts they have touched is whole.. EA is a discipline
to visualize the whole of enterprise for every one to comprehend, and
social architecture will further clear such vision.

3. Knowledge
Management

EA is the enterprise knowledge management to preserve
institutional knowledge rather than a generic knowledge management. EA empowers
an organization with the wisdom of seeing the whole, the power of knowledge and
think about how knowledge and understanding are structured, decomposed into
parts, and how these parts distributed and connected.

Data vs. Information vs. Knowledge:
For the purposes of Enterprise Architecture there is a compelling need to
differentiate between Data, Information, and Knowledge in a practical, not
philosophical, sense.

--"Knowledge - Information
that is internalized and whose meaning is understood by the person consuming
the information"
--"knowledge of one may become the information of another"
--"Knowledge requires the comprehension and understanding of the
information you are given"
--"Knowledge goes further than what being described, in … dealing with
tacit, implicit and explicit".

Creating and sharing knowledge is a
social process. A social architecture provides the framework for
social processes required to achieve shared knowledge. Knowledge is power;
knowledge underpins collective human capabilities, and business
capabilities underpin business strategy and performance. EA should not
only enable every one to see the whole but also enable every one to know
the parts via enterprise knowledge management. EA is an enterprise
knowledge management effort to preserve the institutional knowledge which
changes continuously; and such knowledge life cycle is shortened at
digital era, Enterprise Architects are probably more valuable as an
enterprise knowledge manager than designing a frozen blue print in some
cases.

Knowledge Management Maturity Model:
is to help organizations determine current and future state for Knowledge
Management (KM) within their organization and then develop a roadmap for
change. The model assesses the organization’s performance with regard to:
content management (unstructured); data management (structured); knowledge
(sharing of ideas and learning organizational development); culture and
governance. The stage of an existing maturity model is to create a link
between the knowledge management program and the organization’s business
driver.

When EA blueprint meets social wind, there could be sunshine in
the east and rain in the west, people may get what they need, reap what you
sow, and reach higher level of organizational maturity.